The Winter Devil
by Kaede Ravensdale
Summary: The Winter Devil, Voldemort, has preyed on the wicked children on Christmas Eve for centuries. Finally, the inhabitants of the village where Harry was born and raised have had enough and strike a deal with the creature: they'll offer the beast a single pure soul once a year and the creature will leave the rest of their children alone. Unfortunately for Harry, he's the first to go.
1. The Offering

'Behave, children, or come Christmas stockings filled with coal will be the least of your concerns,' the adults would whisper every year, starting when the temperature began to grow colder and the nights to grow longer. 'Do your chores. Mind your manners. Behave. If you don't, the Winter Devil will get you. He'll steal you from your warm bed and whip you raw with Ruten bundles, shove you into the enchanted basket he carries on his back and spirit you away to his cave in the mountains. If you're lucky you'll be skewered and boiled before he eats you. If you're not he'll eat you alive.'

When Harry had been younger and his parents had still been alive he remembered asking is mother what the Winter Devil's real name was. Why, around town, he was only ever referred to as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You-Know-Who and his mother had explained that it was because the Winter Devil was a demon. And to speak a demon's name was to invite it to appear. But fear hadn't been enough to assuage his curiosity and, after forcing him to promise to never sign or even mouth the word, had written the creature's name out on a paper which was promptly burned. He hadn't been the most able at reading at the time, but then five year old Harry Potter had been able to make out the word for what it was.

Voldemort.

Every year after being told that story, little Harry had been certain to behave. Even after his parents had died, leaving him to the cruel mercy of his aunt and uncle who treated him like a slave, the raven never set so much as a toe out of line. Year after year on the night of Christmas misbehaving children would disappear in droves, the cloven hoof prints in the snow all that was left of the Winter Devil's presence there. Year after year Harry lived in misery, tormented by his family and mocked by all in the village for the brokenness within him which forced him to use his hands to speak instead of his voice, but he survived. The beast never came for him or even for his rotten cousin, though at times when the nights grew long he thought that he could sometimes here the jangle of chains outside his bedroom window, but not at fourteen his luck had run out.

Terrified and sick of losing countless children to the beast they'd summoned the monster and struck a deal with him: in return for a yearly offering of a single pure soul, the Winter Devil would leave the rest of the children alone. It could have been anyone, even some one kidnapped from another village, as long as they were below the age of fifteen, but naturally their first choice would be him. The orphaned freak born without a voice who had never caused trouble for anyone.

That was how the raven found himself chained in the woods on the night of the winter solstice, ankle-deep in snow and wearing nothing but the schnapps he'd been soaked in in an effort to make him more appealing to the demon which would soon turn him into dinner. Shivering violently as the teeth of the wintery wind slashed at his exposed flesh, Harry tried his chains again. Solid. They rattled with his movement but didn't give and the sound faded into the distant trees but didn't fall silent.

Blinking furiously at the burn of the fruit liquor which dripped form his black hair, drying sticky across his pale skin, he squinted into the dark. The black was so thick that it was like a solid blanket of nothing but dark trunks and snow, blue tinged beneath the faint glow of the crescent moon. The rattling sound of the creature's chains grew nearer until movement caught his eyes. A figure darker than the night moving between the trees.

Then it stepped into the eldritch silver glow of a shaft of moonlight which slanted down through the trees. Thin and gnarled like the trunk of a birch the Winter Devil towered above him at over ten feet tall. A pair of icy horns, curved into the shape of a backwards S, rose above its hooded head like an imposing crown. Red eyes burned like coals from deep within the shadowed cowl of its black cloak, chains hanging down from the thin wrists of clawed hands and twisted legs ending in razor sharp hooves. It moved with an inhuman speed and utter silence to tower over him, skeletal chest expanding with the dry rasp of breath.

Terrified emerald stared up into smoldering crimson for a moment which seemed to stretch into a small eternity, then it leaned down over him with the snapping pop of a falling tree. Hot breath fanned across his face, smelling of blood and ice.

A forked tongue, prehensile and writhing like a pale snake, emerged from beneath its dark hood. Slithering up the center of his chest, along his neck and over the contour of his jaw. Tasting the liquor and his sweat and his skin and Harry shuddered. Breath escaped him in a soundless huff which, if he'd had a voice, would have been a whimper of terror. The tongue continued its work, a light slimy touch clearing the alcohol away from his face with a delicate precision.

Once it deemed its job presentable enough and still bent in half to reach his eye level the creature hissed at him, the sound more like a foreign language than a feral noise of menace, and rested one spidery hand against his cheek. Running the scaly pad of its thumb, tipped in a curved nail like a steel razor, traced the pink cupid's bow of his upper lip.

Another hiss and then it leaned in further and enveloped him in the darkness of its hood. Pressing the boney ridge of its forehead against his. Its glowing red eyes grew brighter until they were almost blinding and Harry seemed to tumble forward into them. Enveloped in blistering heat. Falling down into hell.

And then everything went black.


	2. Precious Child

It was known that to speak a Demon's name was to invite it in, the summon it, and to incite it to appear so all who lived in the little villages which were spattered about amidst the foothills and dark forests of _his_ mountain dared not voice the name he'd taken after he'd traded away his soul and his humanity for the immortality of the winter cold. But it was less known that invoking a demon's name at all, in writing or in thought, is often enough to draw its attention. Perhaps not right away, but eventually. And throwing the paper upon which one writes into a fire, no matter how quickly it is done, isn't always enough. Voldemort, the Winter Devil, had first found his attention captured by the green eyed innocent almost eleven years before when, tucked away in the darkness of his cave atop the mountain, the electric sensation of a mortal's acknowledgement had raced down his protruding spine. Reverence and fear was what he lived on, the belief in him by humans what fueled his ability to exist eternal, but loneliness had been his cross to bear since the night he'd given away the beauty he'd inherited from the father he hated and to know that someone had invoked his name with more curiosity than fear was like the sweetest of wine on his tongue.

He'd departed his lair that night , proceeding as far as the snow line would allow him, and looked out into the satin darkness at the village far below at the edge of the forest. Miles away. Night after night he would travel to his ledge. Further still when the season began to change. When winter came at last and snow lay thick across all things in a quilt of frigid white he was at last freed from his mountain and proceeded towards the faint light in his perception which was that sweet spark. Innocent. Untainted. Beyond the frost-bite touch of his cruel blue talons. But his, still, in an inexplicable way. Warmth. Tenderness. Affection and care. These were things he'd once considered weaknesses and had looked down upon with derision when he'd still had a handsome human face and a crown of dark hair. But now that beauty had been replaced with the eldritch ruthlessness of ice and his hair with goring horns the gnawing empty _lack_ within him sucked at his sanity like the maw of a glacier sucked in the swirling waters of the northern sea.

Greed. That was what had withered his heart black before he'd torn it, still beating, from his chest and offered it beside his soul so that he'd never have to die. That was what had twisted him into the retribution of the holiday meant to fill hearts with warmth and giving, the opposite of the pestilent old fool known to the mortals as 'Santa Claus'. What lead him to punish those children who had been naughty, all he was allowed to touch as for all their power demon kind had laws as did divinity, and devour their sugar-sweet flesh, boiled and firm or raw and squirming didn't matter, all in hopes of filling that hole. That hole left behind in himself.

The village in which the precious child lived was like any other that he'd seen in his centuries of hateful life. He'd plundered it and many like it every year, filling his basket with the misbehaved and offering no mercy. He traveled through empty, ice lined streets like a shadow. A ghost in the night. Chains dragging behind him and hooves leaving tracks punched into the frozen-skin which had formed over the snow. The house in which the child lived was a single story, well built from wood and radiated the telltale pink-tinged cloud of affection and family which he both longed for and was disgusted by to his very core. With a muffled _Clop! Clop! Clop!_ he walked the perimeter of the house at a pace which exuded all the patience he didn't feel, and finally found the window he was looking for.

Voldemort had to bend in half in order to peer through the clean pane of glass at the child inside. A boy. Small for his age. Perhaps five years old with raven hair, head rested on a feather-stuffed pillow. The picture of innocence, sleeping peacefully and unaware he lay beneath the red-ember eyes of a monster. He watched him all night, unmoving, until the rising sun forced him to return to his mountain. It became a ritual. Each day he'd hide in his cave from the light, warmed by the occasional dart of thoughts of him-conscious or otherwise-which darted across the child's awareness like skittish fish in a shallow forest pond. Each night, for every night that the snow lay on the ground, he'd stand outside his window and watch him sleep. At first he'd only come after midnight, when he knew that his child would be sleeping, but soon that came to not be enough. He'd make the trek earlier and earlier to see his child. Ten. Seven. Dark fall. The dusk. Peering through the windows from afar as the family inside went about their lives. The mother cooking. The father working. The child speaking with his hands instead of his voice.

His forked tongue left human language painful and almost impossible beyond short bursts, so the little child's dancing fingers fascinated him. He tried to follow. To learn. To imitate but was too far away. His fingers too long; a tree's graceless pallid branches, barren and sharp, scratching at the winter sky in a futile effort to imitate a raven's flapping wings. He gave up after a month but continued to watch.

This went on for almost two years; two winters spent watching over his boy, pausing briefly on the night of his raids to stand over his bed a few moments and run blade-like talons carefully through incorrigible black hair, two summers spent trapped on the mountain peering down from his ledge. His boy was seven when it happened; the first snow had fallen that day and Voldemort had wasted no time in acting to satisfy his longing for his silent raven. He'd flown down from his mountain on storm clouds and stood in the forest behind their home, his form blending in with the silver birches in the half-dark as he watched the now seven year old frolic in the snow with his parents. His father had looked up, probably feeling his eyes, and had seen him. Had come at him. Chased him into the forest with his wife behind. His hissed warnings unheeded.

He hadn't wanted to take from his raven but they'd left him no choice. The snow had run red that night. He'd used his magic to cloak himself in the image of his once body so as not to scare the child, had taken him back into his house and tucked him into bed before erasing his memory of his presence. He'd remained nearby as his raven had slept to ensure he was safe, even after the sun had risen and the light had begun to burn his thin skin, leaving only after others from the village had come looking when his parents had failed to appear.

His raven had gone to his wicked relatives and Voldemort had been filled with hate and guilt. They were cruel. Clipped his wings. Stifled his dancing hands. He could no longer approach the house and stare in through the window and, no matter how badly the over-inflated seal that also inhabited the house behaved he couldn't touch him. Not without risk of harming his child further. Risk he wasn't willing to take. Seven more years had gone on that way, and then the summons had happened.

He'd been pacing at the cusp of sundown, the day seeming to pass slower than was normal out of a malicious wish to spite him, when he'd felt it. The burning tingle of a direct summons, and not an accidental one either. He would not be seeing his child tonight, for some selfish mortal wanted something.

He appeared in the center of the circle of salt with a great flourish and the bluster of the north's most frigid winds; horns flashing and hooves stomping the wood floor with great clacks to broadcast his displeasure. Red eyes burned from beneath the deep cowl of his hood as he stared out at the huddle of adults and he bared his teeth.

"What want, mortal?" he wheezed, annoyed by his own inarticulacy in the leaden human tongue. His tail, scaled and snake-like and armored in ice, thrashed against the floor and the rabbled cowered at the sound. The one at the front who thought himself their representative was quick to tell him that they wished him to cease taking children from their village, and asked for his price for this passover. With what words he could form he told them his grim price: one innocent child, he did not care from where they originated, for untainted flesh was sweeter and though he couldn't steal the well behaved he could take them if they were offered. He did not expect them to agree but they did.

They had wasted his night, and would waste the very next night as well; he did not expect to get to see his dear raven until the night after. So when he walked into the clearing where the sacrifice was to be left and found him bound in chains, soaked in schnapps and naked but for the winter wind he was surprised to say the least and pulled up short. This lasted only a moment before he stepped forwards into the moonlight.

His pupils were gaping black holes, edged in only the thinnest ring of emerald as he stared at him. Hairless chest rising and falling with the rapid pace of fear, the wet thudding of his heart against his rips filling the clearing as he drew closer and stood over him. Towering. Casting a black shadow across his skin which looked like marble in the wash of silver light. Beautiful. He flinched back when he bent forward over him, joints popping like snapping twigs. His raven needed to be cleaned; he could see the liquor dried sticky over his body and he reeked of alcohol.

No water nearby. No choice. He'd do what he could here and then do it properly back at his lair. His raven shuddered when his cold forked tongue slithered over his chest, up his neck and across his cheek. Cleaning away the alcohol and tasting the delectable mix it made with the sweat on his skin and the sweetness of child, though it had begun to go over ripe. His raven wasn't far from fifteen, not that it mattered. He wouldn't be taking even a bite out of this sacrifice. The boy huffed, would have whimpered if he had a voice, and the sound lanced through him like a keen blade. Voldemort took care to be tender as he cleaned his face, to reassure him, and lay a hand against his cheek when he was finished. Tracing his plump pink lips with his thumb and hissing a "precious child" that he knew would not be understood. "Your home is with me now."

He leaned forward further and pressed his ridged, scaled forehead against the little raven's. Locking eyes with him. Drawing him forwards into the coarse embrace of his magic and catching his body when he went limp in unconsciousness. Voldemort chilled the metal bonds until they shattered, pressed the cold-reddened flesh of thin wrists against his lips, and lifted him into his arms. His basket would not be used. His raven was too good for it. Was not some misbehaved brute to be tossed in and later emptied into a boiling pot. The Lord of the mountain wrapped the naked boy in the shadowy folds of his cloak to keep him as warm as he could-human bodies were so fragile-and flew back to his lair.

The gnarled stone teeth of the stalactites and stalagmites which jutted up and down from the stone were no obstacle to him and he passed between them like smoke, still baring his precious passenger. With the entirety of the cave system mapped out in his mind Voldemort traveled around corners and down frosted passageways with the clopping of hooves until he reached the chamber where the red waters of the hot spring bubbled up from a great gash in the rock. Hissing in distaste at the heat and humidity which filled the chamber the demon trotted to a stop at the edge of the spring and carefully lowered the unconscious child into the shallow end of the warm water.

With as gentle a grip as what amounted to a bushel of knives could have on his raven hair he held the boy's head above water, snarling in pain as he splashed the warm water onto the liquor-slathered skin until he couldn't take it anymore and pulled his raven out. Crafting a bed out of ice in another chamber and draping it in thick furs, he wrapped his raven in a quilt of white rabbit pelts and laid him down on it. Pausing to run his fingers once more through his hair, like he had years ago.

"Sleep well, precious child. I will treat you with the care that you deserve." He hissed. "I guard jealously what belongs to me."


End file.
